Fast Five (2011)

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker lead a reunion of returning all-stars from every chapter of the explosive franchise built on speed in Fast Five. In this installment, former cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) partners with ex-con Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) on the opposite side of the law. Dwayne Johnson joins returning favorites Jordana Brewster, Chris Ludacris Bridges, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Matt Schulze, Tego Calderon and Don Omar for this ultimate high-stakes race.

Since Brian and Mia Toretto (Brewster) broke Dom out of custody, they've blown across many borders to elude authorities. Now backed into a corner in Rio de Janeiro, they must pull one last job in order to gain their freedom. As they assemble their elite team of top racers, the unlikely allies know their only shot of getting out for good means confronting the corrupt businessman who wants them dead. But he's not the only one on their tail.

Hard-nosed federal agent Luke Hobbs (Johnson) never misses his target. When he is assigned to track down Dom and Brian, he and his strike team launch an all-out assault to capture them. But as his men tear through Brazil, Hobbs learns he can't separate the good guys from the bad. Now, he must rely on his instincts to corner his prey...before someone else runs them down first.

Katey, I was most surprised to find that the second trailer to completely blow me away (after the Iron Man 3 spot, which was fantastic) was the trailer for Fast and the Furious 6. That series has completely shifted gears -- pun intended -- from the dregs of Tokyo Drift and the bland fourth installment. Fast Five put it back on the right track, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm genuinely looking forward to a F&F sequel. Are you with me?

And with news of how to watch the fifth film for cheap, we also have an update on the status of what’s ahead for the franchise. We knew that the sequel to Fast Five would be split into two films, and there was apparently talk of the movies being filmed back-to-back, however, from what Dwayne Johnson says, that's no longer the case.

Justin Lin’s lucrative sequel, Fast Five, roared to a $626.1 million worldwide take, making it the highest-grossing film in the franchise’s history. Imagine how much more it could have made, though, if 9.2 million people didn’t illegally download Five to their computer, robbing Lin (and Universal) of some hard-earned cash?

If you’re up to date on the Fast and Furious movies, or at the very least, if you saw Fast Five, you’re aware that the franchise, which hit the decade-mark this year, took a turn with the last film, veering away from the street racing element that played a large role in the earlier films, and aiming more for an action thriller, as the characters attempted to pull off a heist.

It wasn't a surprise that Fast Five made a lot of money. With the exception of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, all of the other films in the franchise made over $100 million at the domestic box office and the fourth installment, Fast and Furious, had made the most money yet.

Universal Home Entertainment is currently readying for an October release of Fast Five. It’s a late release for a movie that hit theaters mid-spring, but that’s only because Universal is unveiling a new app with the release. To tide its hungry fans over, the company has released some short cast interviews, which mostly just prove how irrelevant Paul Walker has become in pop culture.

Fast Five will eventually hit Blu-Ray and DVD on October 4. Purchasing the DVD or Blu-Ray will yield the same basic features, including biopics on Brian O’Connor and Dom’s characters, a gag reel, deleted scenes, commentary from director Justin Lin, and an “Enter Federal Agent Hobbs” featurette.

Speaking to Access Hollywood, the action hero said he’s “sure” that the writing team behind the financially successful Fast Five ($571 million at the global box office) was “writing away” on part six. While hardly a verbal commitment that the sequel will be in theaters any time soon

There's no word on when the studio plans to make the film, or how it will fit in with Lin's commitment to Terminator now that that franchise has received financing as well. There's also no confirmation of exactly what Summit plans to do with The Highlander, which started in 1986

Thor arrived in theaters, pretty much everywhere except the United States and Canada, on April 28th. It’s been making big money in international markets for more than week now, earning $176 million before the biggest movie consuming market got a chance to take a crack at it.

Thor opened in midnight screenings around the United States last night and it’s currently printing out tickets at a rapid rate around the country as people get off work and pile into movie theaters. It’s doing well too, the movie made $3.3 million in those midnight showings and is expected to do around $25 million in business by end of day Friday.

The box office has been hungering all year for a hit to help break its ticket sales slump. Leave it to the fourth sequel in a hit and miss franchise to get the run up to summer jump started. Fast Five sped into theaters this weekend, hauling away over $83 million. That's the biggest opening for a movie in the Fast/Furious franchise. It's also more than the third film, Tokyo Drift made in US sales during its entire run.

Not every indie flick people are raving about needs to be seen, and not every raunch comedy critics are slandering should be missed. You want to be in on the water cooler conversation about the newest blockbuster Monday morning, but you also want to see possible Academy Award nominees before your friends. It's a tightrope to cross, but we're here for you.

Katey will have her review of Fast Five up for your eyeballs here on Cinema Blend soon. For the record, I think she kind of liked it. But I’m sure what you’re really interested in is all the work that must have went in to developing a script for a movie like this. I mean, the guy who wrote it had to come up with one-liners...

This week we've got Superman fighting werewolves, Disney trying to make the Prom relevant, an inane animated flick, Dom Toretta riding again, and I give the same prediction number for three of the four movies being released!

I checked out on the Fast and the Furious franchise after the second one. I had a good time with the second one, Tyrese makes the movie, but for me that was enough. Until now that is. The new entry, Fast Five, brings all the franchise cast members together in one big mega-film and, that seems like a lot of fun.

I'm not sure there are too many people out there who could tell you with a straight face that the Fast and the Furious movies are particularly well-written. Are they full of action? Absolutely. Is there plenty of eye candy for both men and women? Of course. Is the dialogue amazing and the story well crafted? Not so much.

Pretty much the minute Arnold Schwarzenegger left office as the Governor of California earlier this year, he started threatening not just to return to acting, but to produce and star in remakes of all the movies you loved him for to begin with

Back in February the first poster for Fast Five debuted. Surprisingly filled with a lot of negative space with all of the action happening at the bottom, I thought it was a pretty cool poster, particularly because it was flashy without being stupid and didn't contain any dumb floating heads. The second time around they've kept the negative space idea, but removed what was really interesting.

It's the same basic formula as the trailers we've seen already-- get to Rio, introduce the mission, meet Dwayne Johnson as the officer of the law after both Diesel and Walker as they fight the local Rio mobs. The main difference is that we're seeing different car crashes and chase

It's been while since I've hopped on Skype with my regular podcast pals, and we've missed it as much as you hopefully have. So at the urging of the ever-stalwart Dave Gonzales, I got into a conversation with him and David Ehrlich (Matt Patches, who completes our quartet, was sadly busy) about a few things that were on our minds. Primarily we talked about the deal that the Criterion Collection has struck with Hulu Plus

It's rare that a film franchise, regardless of success, makes it past its third installment (just look at any collection of superhero movies for proof), but this year will see the release of Fast Five,

Now that Paul Walker and Vin Diesel's characters have teamed up, Johnson is on board for Fast Five to play the cop on their trail, following them to Brazil for surely more fast-driving action and trash talk

Last month we published an article titled "10 Actors Who Don't Care About Movies." Included in said article was Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The wrestler-turned-actor had all the makings of being the next

Fast whips, cop cars and bank safes, OH MY! That’s about all you’re going to get out of these new images from the set of Fast Five, the latest in the profitable and never-ending Fast and the Furious franchise

I admit, it's only within the last few years that I've been able to remember the difference between The Rock and Vin Diesel, mostly because The Rock repeatedly makes bad family comedies like The Tooth Fairy, and Diesel just made one

While the fourth Fast and Furious film-- called just Fast and Furious, of course-- brought it all back home by taking place in Southern California and Mexico, the fifth film is apparently getting more adventurous

The fifth film will feature the returning team of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, as well as director Justin Lin and producer Neil Moritz. This time Diesel and Walker's character will be fugitives on the run from "legendary lawmen"